Precious Little Gifts
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl One shot. Set in Alexandria, but somewhat AU. Daryl wants to give Carol a gift to replace something she's lost.


**AN: This is a little one shot, just for fun, to fill a request. **

**I guess it's AU? It's set in Alexandria, but it's not all that important. It's just a little something for entertainment. **

**Warning for discussion of Ed (slight mention of domestic abuse/etc).**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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Daryl ditched his company on the run easily enough. He was going to scope out the rest of the little strip mall. He was going to leave them loading up the van they'd found with the scattered contents of the well-picked-through "dollar store" and he was going to check out the other buildings to see if there was anything worthwhile for them to stop in and load up on.

There was a lot, after all, that they simply didn't need in this world. Entire buildings still stood completely untouched because, though the items they held were often the most valuable before the fall of the world, now they meant relatively nothing.

If you couldn't eat it, drink it, wear it, wash with it, or wipe your nasty ass with it? There wasn't too much need for it generally.

If he'd been any of a number of people, they'd never have let him go anywhere alone. But he came and went as he pleased. One of these days, more than likely, it was going to get him killed—but he had a pretty decent feeling that today was not that day. The place was relatively calm and hadn't been too overrun with Walkers.

He plucked one of the cigarettes he had out of his pocket, straightened it as best he could, and lit it. Then, puffing on it, he walked with slow steps and somewhat lazily down the "sidewalk" that ran around the complex.

In his mind, he ticked off each of the places that he passed as not being worth even the time it would take to kill three Walkers if they were trapped inside. There was nothing they might want or need at those places unless they were on a special type of run for something only that establishment might hold.

One of the windows that he passed caught his eye. The buildings always did—their windows glimmered in the sun, it was hard to miss them. Usually these places were busted into, ransacked, and very nearly torn down.

But that activity, he knew when he saw it, came from when the world had first gone to shit. It happened when everyone figured that what the hell was going on was some kind of minor blip on the radar of the world. Everything would be set back to normal in a matter of days. So, instead of doing what the hell they should have been doing and focusing on things they needed to survive, people had started busting into places to steal electronics—televisions, computers, gaming systems. If it wasn't tied down, and they thought they could sell it later for some pocket change? They were stealing it.

And these stores? The jewelry stores? They were hit hard in the beginning.

Daryl might have never stopped at the building—there was nothing there of any real value, after all—if it hadn't been that the glimmer of the jewelry in the window reminded him that he had meant to find one of these stores.

So, glancing around to make sure that those several buildings down were occupied and paying him no attention, he stepped into the broken door and looked around in the semi darkness.

There was no chance of Walkers here, the broken door pretty much assured him of that, but he whistled a few times at any rate to check. When nothing came he allowed himself to have a look around. He knew what he wanted, but he didn't know exactly where to find it.

For whatever reason, they'd stripped her clean of everything she had at the hospital. Most of her possessions had come back to her, though not any better for their time with them, in her sack, but there was one thing that hadn't.

He'd always liked that she wore the small diamond studs in her ears. They caught the light. And they looked, at times, so ridiculously out of place. Still, that was something that he'd liked about her, even if he couldn't explain it. Caked with mud or covered in Walker guts, she was still the kind of woman that wore, on her ears, tiny little diamond studs that glittered in the daylight.

But it had been a long while since she'd had them—and even though she'd never said anything about, sometimes Daryl caught her tugging quickly at her ears. It was the momentary search for something she was used to having that she'd forgotten was gone.

Silly as it was, and as much of a waste of time as it might be, he wanted to replace them.

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Carol turned around from taking the casserole out of the oven to find that, in the moment that her back was turned, a box had appeared on the counter.

Daryl was standing across the island from her.

Since they'd become equals in Alexandria and they'd spread out, feeling comfortable and confident in the space, she'd been living with him. He'd surprised her, first presenting the idea that they live together as "something that made sense" so that neither of them would be alone—and a few others had "doubled up" for the same reasons—but as soon as they'd settled in, he'd made it clear that he might want something more.

He might want to, essentially, play house with her. Though he'd never admitted it, really, and he'd never put it into those words.

He'd never really put it into too many words. A week after they'd moved into the house he'd simply shown up, in her bedroom, and asked if he could stay.

And romantic or not, she understood him. And she'd let him stay.

Now? He was getting better. Now he was becoming comfortable, or at least as comfortable as she thought it was reasonable to expect him to be. He'd even gone so far as to, once, mutter something that she was almost certain was an "I love you" in response to her own confession of feelings for him.

And now there was a small box on the counter in front of her and he was staring at her.

"You gonna open it?" He asked when she'd put the casserole they'd eat for dinner that night, and for the next night, down on the counter to cool a little.

"What is it?" Carol asked.

"You ain't gonna know until you open it," he offered.

Carol started to protest, but there wasn't any reason in it. Whatever it was, he'd thought enough of it to pick it up on their run and to carry it around with him for maybe even two days. He wasn't going to be satisfied if she didn't open it and there wasn't any "returning" gifts these days because they were too extravagant—or even simply unwanted.

Carol sighed and picked the box up.

She opened it, not that it was wrapped, and found that within the box there was a bundle of bunched up cloth ripped from a garment of some kind. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Open it," he said.

So she held the bundle and unwrapped it.

Something clattered to the floor, but lying in her palm was another "something".

It was a diamond stud. It was a little larger than the ones she used to wear and it was a little nicer. The diamonds were surrounded by what she imagined to be platinum instead of yellow gold.

She looked down at the floor, located the one that had bounced out of her hand, and brought it up to rest with the other on the counter where she deposited them. Daryl was still staring at her.

"You lost 'em," he said. "Tug at your ears. Thought—you might like some back."

Carol swallowed and brought her fingers up, without thinking about it, to tug at her ear lobes like he suggested she did.

"They're very nice, thank you," she said. "But—there's no need to wear things like that."

"No need not to," Daryl said.

Carol fingered one of the studs with the end of her finger. She shook her head to herself.

"Ed gave them to me," she said. "The old ones?"

She glanced at Daryl. He was sitting now, on one of the stools that they sat at, across the island from each other, when they ate. It was the closest they had come to having a "family dinner" since they didn't have a table and it wasn't worth searching one out for two people.

"It was right after I found out that I was pregnant with Sophia," Carol said. She tried to judge, with a flick of her eyes in his direction, if Daryl was interested in hearing the story. He wasn't going anywhere and he wasn't dropping his eyes away from her—that was the best indication of interest that she could hope for. "The earrings were the nicest gift that he'd given me. Even—even our wedding rings were second hand. But the earrings? He bought them from…from this little place in town that sold jewelry. A nice little shop. They came wrapped in this paper that they had…the store name printed on it. He gave them to me because I was pregnant."

Daryl cleared his throat and she looked at him.

"He wanted Sophia?" He asked. He shook his head at her. "You said he didn't never seem to care so much about her—except…"

Carol winced and shook her head at him and he stopped speaking.

"He wanted a boy," Carol said. "He was so…so sure…that I was pregnant with a boy. He gave me the earrings before we knew that Sophia was a girl. When he found out?"

She stopped and shook her head. Daryl nodded his slightly at her, a way of giving her permission to leave off with any of the description that she didn't want to include in her story.

Carol sighed.

"Doesn't matter," she said. "They were the nicest thing that he ever gave me. They were—really the last gift he gave me. He said…when Sophia was a girl…that—they'd be the only valuable thing I'd ever have. Because I wasn't worth anything, and she wasn't…"

Carol stopped.

"He was wrong," she said. She turned back toward the stove she'd only recently turned off to cool down and started wiping at the stovetop with a rag. She kept, just like she'd always done, everything in her house immaculate. Old habits rose back to the surface when things got quiet.

Except now? She did it because she liked the clean—or maybe for the trained habit of it—but she didn't fear punishment if she didn't. Nobody said anything if a dish went unwashed.

Still, she wiped the already clean stovetop down because that's what she felt she needed to do.

"I think—losing her? Every time I touched them…just knowing they were there? It didn't make me think of Ed. It made me think of Sophia and, maybe, how Ed was wrong," Carol said. "Sophia—she was the most valuable thing I ever had. She was the real treasure."

She heard the sound of the stool scuff on the floor and a moment later Daryl was standing at her side. He offered her, open palm, the earrings that she'd left on the island.

"I can't get her back for you," he said. "Never could."

Carol swallowed at the lump in her throat.

"Thank you," she said. It was the same thanks she gave him most every time they talked about Sophia. She acknowledged how hard he searched for the girl. She reminded him often that he'd done for Sophia, and therefore for Carol, more than Ed ever did or ever would have.

Even if he couldn't bring her back, Carol had no doubt in her mind that he would if he'd been able to.

"Keep 'em," Daryl said, offering her the earrings again. "Wear 'em. This time? For Sophia. Not for—some shit he said. He's dead any damn way—his fuckin' words too."

Carol thanked him and accepted the earrings. She palmed them and started to put them on, but looking at Daryl she could tell that he was uncomfortable with the thanks. He was learning, but mostly he would rather—if he were going to give you something or do something for you—do it and never speak of it again.

Carol caught him eyeing the casserole, though, and she figured the return of a kind gesture might be more to his liking at any rate.

"Hungry?" She asked.

He didn't respond, but his eyes lit up a little.

"Sit," she said. "I'll get you a plate."

And she left no room for him to argue, moving immediately to get plates and something to serve, so he did sit.

Carol served him some casserole first and presented it to him, alongside a beer that she plucked from the fridge—fresh brewed in the basement of one of the houses by a resident of Alexandria—and then she took her seat across from him at the island.

And when she reached up, without thinking, and touched her ear, her fingers finding the newly placed diamond stud, she saw a quick smile flicker across Daryl's lips.

She returned it, unable to help herself.

"Maybe…" she said, hesitating a minute and smiling at him when he looked at her. "Next time? When you bring me a gift like that—it'll be a different kind of diamond."

He blushed red and immediately crammed some of the food in his mouth.

"Stop," he muttered around the food.

She chuckled at him.

"I'd accept it too," she said. "Just so you know," she added softly.

He rolled his eyes up at her, another smile glimmering for a fraction of a second only, and then he dropped his head once more to pay careful attention to the casserole.

At least, if the thought did ever cross his mind, he wouldn't have to worry about her reaction. At least he'd know.


End file.
